Spitting Image

This belated and tired revival of Spitting Image is exactly what it shouldn't be, completely safe and quite boring - despite a wealth of ex-Futurama (!) voice/writing talent and some clever puppetry the whole series comes across as flaccid, dated, cheap and nowhere near the sharp satire we desperately crave. There are rare glimmers of potential in there - the Cummings-as-alien-overlord shtick was routinely very good and most of the UK cabinet bashing was semi-cathartic but generally it was more spinelessly preoccupied with celebrity egos and desperate slapstick than anything really meaningful or... well, funny. It wasn't funny. Fundamentally it should have at least had that. Existentially there were issues as well, in that it was relegated to a subscription service rather than on "normal" television - so barely anybody even saw it. Satire really should be available to everyone but when it's this tired and crass perhaps obscurity is a kindness.

With another series commissioned they need to do a serious re-think. Get some more talented impressionists (no offence to the bafflingly sidelined veteran US voice talent of Billy West, John DiMaggio and Phil LaMarr but full offence intended for the over-used Forde who can only really do Boris well), go after some hard targets, stop chasing the easy gags and REALLY don't feel like you need to do a song an episode. It's not really a modern satirical show but a lazy nostalgia project for people who half-remember what mainstream satire used to look like.

Thought I'd give this a try with a free britbox subscription. Not seen the original series.

The show doesn't hold back, seems rather uncensored and raw at times but this is refreshing in my opinion. It cuts through the dire politics either side of the Atlantic.

The content is topical and there's some clever ideas though also some sketches that aren't effective. Lewis Hamilton is done well but Keir Starmer less so.

The voice acting isn't the best but with caricatures this isn't the focus.

It's not so much laugh out funny as some of the content is just cringe. It will offend but that's par for the course.

Judging from the first episode would giving it 7/10.

Oh dear. I was so looking forward to its return. But it's just not that funny.

Sure the odd scene raises a bit of a smile, but that's few and far between.

The puppet work is spot on and amazing. All praise there.

But the voices aren't very good. Trump for example... there are SO MANY people that can do Trump well. And this is just substandard. Boris Johnson too.

Add to that it's not funny, it's not daring... it's sadly one to miss.

The fact that they wanted to sell subscriptions of this makes it particularly risible.

The original Spitting Image was far and away the best satirical program on TV in the eighties, as evidenced by it's near world-wide popularity and the plethora of international adaptations.

This thing, not so much. It seems the writers has taken little to no inspiration from the biting political satire which made the original such a hit. Instead they have substituted it with largely toothless and bland humor and apparently rely on the (admittedly excellent) puppets to provide the laughs. Add in the shoddy, sometimes awful, impressions and you end up with a real dog's dinner of a show.

In general it seems that proper satire, political or not, is now a dead or dying art amongst today's writers. Or maybe the fault lies with the executives and their lack of spine. Who knows.

Anyway, I suppose there's still a glimmer of hope. The first season of the original series also fell flat and it wasn't until Rob Grant and Doug Naylor were brought in that it took off and became the jewel we all know and love. Fingers crossed then that the writers and voice actors are booted out post hase and some decent ones located.

It doesn't have the same charisma as the original series, which was all about grotesqueness. The old puppets looked far more rubbery, as though the rubber was alive & almost melting. At least that's how I remember it. It's possible that's partially about the higher definition of the new series but I suspect it's beause they just don't have the same spitting image workshop, the same talented puppet creators, whose talent in particular was not just creating a satirical likeness but turning that likeness into something far more obscenely exaggerated than we have in this version.

Actually some of the puppets aren't bad but none of them really seem alive in the same way as the original. With the original series the introduction of a new character was always something of an event: you never quite knew what they'd do with a character. I think they've tried to an extent here: Boris isn't bad - basically a bristly mop but not obviously larger than life than the real thing. Same could be said of Trump. I quite liked the Greta character, but none of them have that 'oh my god, look what they did to X...factor' & some of the almost grotesque takes like Pence seem to be more about political dislike than any kind of wit.

Which brings us onto the comedy side of things. The puppets in themselves aren't enough to bring us to the table. Unfortunately the script & the jokes aren't any better really. It's difficult to be objective here. Comedy & the world with it has changed a lot, but funny is still funny so long as you can suspend whatever political prejudices one might have & there was very little that made me laugh. For information, the above review is based on episode two, & there were a few times I almost chuckled & I actually did laugh at the final joke, but mostly I just watched out of curiosity. The Pelosi sequence wasn't bad but the comedy seemed 'logical' rather than to just flow of its own accord. Maybe it'll get better but I kind of doubt it.

There are worse ways to spend half an hour but it's not something to tune in especially for